Art Dubai 2022: Group presentation

Dastan is pleased to announce its participation at Art Dubai 2022 with a presentation of works by Fereydoun Ave, Andisheh Avini, Nasser Bakhshi, Yousha Bashir, Sepand Danesh, Maryam Eivazi, Hoda Kashiha, Meghdad Lorpour, Farrokh Mahdavi, Mehrdad Mohebali, Asal Peirovi, Mamali Shafahi and Peybak. These artists have shown their works in at least one of the three spaces – Dastan's Basement, +2, and Parallel Circuit – depending on their practice, method, and objective.

Fereydoun Ave (b. 1945, Tehran, Iran) is an influential figure in the Iranian contemporary art. He received his BA in Applied Arts for Theatre from Arizona State University, studied film at New York University, and studied at the University of Seven Seas (aka Semester at Sea). Over the past five decades, he has taken on many different roles as artist, designer, art director, collector, curator, gallerist and art patron. His artworks have been featured in many solo exhibitions along with hundreds of group shows in galleries and museums around the world. Other than many notable private collectors, Ave’s works have been acquired by prestigious art institutions including The British Museum in London, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, Cy Twombly Foundation and Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art.

Brooklyn-based Andisheh Avini (b. 1974, New York) uses painting, drawing, printmaking, and sculpture, often incorporating the traditional craft of marquetry, in his artistic practice. Avini explores the duality of his own identity by combining iconic Iranian images like Persian calligraphy, decorative motifs, and portraiture with occidental concepts of minimalism and abstraction. Avini's approach speaks to a larger globalized society of nomads, the displaced, and the wayfarer, reflecting a contemporary multicultural experience to which many can relate.

Nasser Bakhshi (b. 1982, Tabriz, Iran) is a self-taught artist working across a variety of media. His work has been previously exhibited in more than ten solo exhibitions in Iran and abroad, as well as many group exhibitions in Tabriz, Tehran, Dubai, Istanbul, Antwerp, Warsaw, and New York.

Yousha Bashir (born in 1989, Manila, Philippines) is a multidisciplinary artist living in Tehran. He has a degree in Computer Graphics Design and a BA in Visual Arts from the University of Farhangian in Tehran. His work ranges from painting to sculpture to installation. Concepts such as construction/destruction, duality, and suspension are key elements that shape his works. One of his main preoccupations is Self and the definition of Self in an attempt to find the boundary between the outer/inner space. The subject of his works, as such, is often the figures and abstract views of a utopian/dystopian city. Yousha's recent collection continues to explore his abstract vision. He discovers the relationship between digital and physical realm in painting. These paintings play with the idea of incorrect translation/production of a digital image to physical painting and the limitations and opportunities that each individual platform provides.

Sepand Danesh (b. 1984, Tehran, Iran) is a graduate of École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux- Arts in Paris where he studied under Giuseppe Penone and Philippe Cognée. His work has been exhibited throughout the world, including the USA, Belgium, UAE, Iran and Morocco and has entered prestigious collections such as the Fonds National d'Art Contemporain, FRAC Poitou Charentes, Collection Société Générale and Fondation Colas. He regularly takes part in residencies and performances, including the Mac/Val, which has also featured his work on multiple occasions. He uses drawing, painting and workshops as a rhizome of opportunity in which he bursts ideas about the dynamic of the hub. His paintings represent optical illusion of inside corner (as the metaphor of impediment) without floor or ceiling which shelter his intimate and also the world's wider memory.

Maryam Eivazi (b. 1980, Tehran) is an Iranian painter and sculptor who splits her time between Tehran and Milan. Having graduated from the Arts and Architecture University with a BA in Painting and an MA in Restoration and Conservation of Cultural Heritage, she moved to Italy in 2012 to study MFA at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna. She is best known for her lyrical use of colors and forms in creating abstract images and sculptures. With her freehand improvised scribbles of often repeated motifs in pronounced colors, she communicates her daily engagements using intuitive codes and emotional gestures. Oftentimes she employs the repetition in choreographed clusters in constant interaction with open planes and fluid forms of the layers underneath. Eivazi is widely represented both in Iran and internationally and has exhibited her work in numerous solo and group exhibitions, most notably her participation in Artissima 2021 and Art Dubai 2020.

Hoda Kashiha (b. 1986, Tehran, Iran) is a graduate of Painting from the University of Tehran (BA, 2009) and Boston University (MFA, 2014). She received the Esther B. and Albert S. Kahn Award; Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center Rare Book Prize; Iranian Association of Boston Scholarship; and Boston University Women’s Council Scholarship. She was a fellow at MacDowell Colony, Virginia Center for Creative Art and she received the Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant at Vermont Studio Center. She has held many solo exhibitions, most recently at Passerelle Centre d’art contemporain (CAC) with "I'm Here, I'm not Here" (Feb 2022); "In Appreciation of Blinking", Parallel Circuit, Tehran (2021); ˝Dear St. Agatha I am witness of your tears in the land of tulips˝, Galerie Nathalie Obadia, Brussels (2020); ˝Crashed into The Sun˝, Etemad Gallery, Tehran (2018); and ˝I Scream Louder Than You˝, Commonwealth Gallery, Boston, MA (2014). Her group participations include "Soft Edge of the Blade", Frieze Cork Street, London (2022); FIAC 2021; "City Prince/sses", Palais De Tokyo, Paris (2019); "The Oil of Pardis", Balice Hertling Gallery, Paris (2018); "Human Condition", Los Angeles Metropolitan Medical Center, Los Angeles (2016); "New narrative, Storefront Ten Eyck", Brooklyn, NY (2015); New Talent, Alpha Galley, Boston, MA (2014); "Oppositional Realities", Emerson College Gallery, Boston, MA (2014); Sherman Gallery, Boston, Ma (2013); Boston Young Contemporaries, 808 Gallery, Boston, MA (2013); and "Big, Red, Shindig", Mills Gallery, BCA, Boston (2013).

Meghdad Lorpouris a painter based in Tehran, Iran. Throughout his career, Meghdad’s subject matter has ranged from portraiture to landscape and still life, and his analytical approach to every aspect of his work has constantly evolved. He begins with a multi-layered phase of research, which includes deep dives into related literature, travel, documentation, and recording oral histories, and continues by exploring his recollections of the research process as sketches and experiments in technique and representation. After his early focus on portraiture, inspired by Persian mythology and Miniature Painting, Lorpour soon shifted towards looking at animals in their natural habitats, contextualizing them in his research on mythological history. More recently, he has focused on nature itself — landscapes and the different aspects of the natural environment. The artist has been meticulously looking at nature through certain points of view and sought to induce inner mythological layers to his settings while depicting natural scenery. Meghdad Lorpour studied painting in Shahed University, Tehran. His work has been exhibited in four solo exhibitions, including a show at +2, two at Mah Art Gallery, as well as over twenty group exhibitions and international art fair presentations.

Farrokh Mahdavi (b. 1970, Tehran, Iran) is a prolific painter. His works can be distinguished through the use of unique pinkish hues. His technique aims to reach "a more material meaning" by "omitting the impurities", defamiliarizing the well-known facial elements, and crossing over "cliché definitions". His works emphasize the fleshy-pink color, a color that covers his figures and allows the rendering of "a more general depiction of human beings devoid of stereotypes of gender and of race".  The faces in Mahdavi’s work are reduced to such features as the eyes or the lips, and the rest are covered by thick layers of pink paint, hinting at the emotional world of his characters. He tries to specify forms and conditions without directly depicting anything additional to that as he believes it deviates from the main point. Farrokh Mahdavi's works have been shown in Iran and abroad including most recently at Frieze Cork Street, London (2022); FIAC, Paris (2021); "Seemingly Playful", Yavuz Gallery, Sydney, Australia (2021); "City Prince/sses" at the Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2019); and the Iranian Pavilion in Venice Biennale (2015).

Mehrdad Mohebali (b. 1960) lives in Tehran. He is a graduate of Painting from the University of Tehran. In his usually large-size paintings, numerous figures are depicted in a realistic style. Some of these are familiar political figures and scenes from art history next to portraits of the artist and everyday individuals. In his compositions, realistically drawn bodies float against a background of unusual elements.

Asal Peirovi (b. 1985, Sari, Mazandaran Province, Iran) is a graduate of Painting from Shahed University (BA, 2009) and Tehran Art University (MA, 2014). Her work has been featured in many solo exhibitions and numerous group shows. In her work, she uses a wide variety of techniques and focuses on themes such as memory, travel, scenography, and geometry. Her signature is the distinct handling of materials and experimentations with perspectives and architectural elements.

Mamali Shafahi (B.1982, lives in Amsterdam and Paris) is a filmmaker and video installation artist. His practice, varying from installation to sculpture and film, includes a deep fascination with the impact of emerging technologies on life and art. His early work in France, at the Paris-Cergy school of fine arts, focused on performance. He then produced a number of video installations, in which he investigated the relationship between past, present, future, and new technologies.

Peybak (Peyman Barabadi and Babak Alebrahim Dehkordi, both b. 1984, Tehran, Iran) is the acronym of two artists who have been working together as a "unified duo" since December 20, 2001. They work on every piece together, each taking on different parts until they both declare it finished. Peybak's works are inspired by Persian poetry, mythology, and miniature painting. Peybak has extensively presented its works in Iran and worldwide.